H/T Bat for this post. Yah Bat, this is REAL comforting. Not surprising…….

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For three decades, U.S. inspectors visited 250 meat processing plants as rarely as once every two weeks despite federal law requiring daily inspection, Agriculture Department officials admitted to lawmakers on Thursday.

“All I can say is, it’s been going on for a long time,” said Undersecretary Richard Raymond to the House Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture. “It’s going to stop now.”

There are 6,000 federally inspected slaughterhouses and meat processing plants in the United States, USDA says.

The practice started under directives issued in the early 1970s, said Raymond. He told reporters afterward that daily inspections would commence “soon, damn soon.” He said the plants apparently were small operations located a long distance from an inspector’s base.

Also during the hearing, Raymond said USDA would delay until June or July the implementation of “risk-based inspection” of processing plants, rather than begin in April. USDA may propose at the end of 2007 to adopt the system at slaughterhouses, he said.

Subcommittee chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (news, bio, voting record) repeatedly challenged whether USDA has the data needed to justify the new inspection system. “If I can help it, not on my watch,” said the Connecticut Democrat in adjourning the hearing. She said Raymond would be called to another hearing in April.

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